An individuals interaction with others & the world around them can enrich or limit their experience of

belonging

Discuss this view with detailed reference to your prescribed text & at least ONE other related text of
your own choosing.

An individuals interaction can indeed enrich or limit ones experience of belonging, as belonging is one of the
essential needs of any human being. Belonging can be seen in the prescribed text of Arthur Millers The Crucible,
Peter Weirs Dead Poets Society & Nathaniel Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, where the central characters are driven
by their need to belong or not belong which is ultimately stimulated by the world & people around them.

The Crucible is based on the Salem community found in Massachusetts, a small & religious Puritan village of New
England on the true story of how a group of young girls began the world famous Salem witch hunts that were
responsible for the deaths of many innocent people due to their desperate need for belonging. The Salem
community is set in an isolated area vastly distant from mainstream society, with its own social hierarchy, belief
system & way of life. Its physical setting is metaphor of its seclusion and detachment from society, creating its non-
belonging identity to the rest of the world.

Abigail Williams, the niece of the towns reverend, becomes the catalyst for the play as her affair with John Proctor
drives her great desires to belong as a wife. I look for John Proctor who took me from my sleep & placed knowledge
into my heart says Abigail revealing that it was her relationship with Proctor that arouses her sense of belonging.
After failing to belong alongside Proctor she searches for other ways in which she may belong, finding it among a
group of girls within the village who are fed up of being treated as children & want to be accepted within the
community as respected adults. By dancing in the woods, they confirm their isolation from the Salem community as
they feel the repression of their natural inclination to dance when dancing is a whipping offence; however conjuring
spirits that Abigail did in order to kill Goody Proctor is a hanging offence.

Abigails sense of belonging to this group of girls is identified when we see that she is the mastermind behind the
crying out when she says: Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word and I will bring a pointy
reckoning that will shudder you, and you I can do it revealing her sense of belonging through her gain of power &
control over the girls that partially satisfies her hunger for acceptance.

A major character in the play that demonstrates belonging/not belonging due to their interactions with surrounding
people can be seen in the character of John Proctor. Initially he is an outsider in his own family caused by his affair
with Abigail, and is also an outsider in the Salem church community due to his lack of church attendance generated
by his dislike of Reverend Parris that, in turn leads to his detachment from the community itself & the Salem courts.
The ideology that you can only either choose to conform or not can be seen in Danforths speech (A Salem
magistrate) when saying to Proctor A person is either with the court or against it, there be no road in between
suggesting that his interaction with Danforth limits his sense of belonging.

After being displaced in his own family, he finds refuge in his wife after he realises that she is paying the price for a
sin that he committed, and his sense of belonging becomes clear in the sense that he chooses his wife over his name
& place within society demonstrated when he says I will fall like an ocean on this court! showing that he has
chosen to not belong & will stand to suffer the consequence; death.

There are always consequences of belonging or not belonging, and this is explored in Peter Weirs Dead Poets
Society, a film set in the 1950s about a single sex boys prep boarding school, Welton Academy, where tradition &
conformity is essential until an English teacher (John Keating) arrives & revitalises the students way of thinking,
approach to life and dares them to suck out the marrow of life.

Keating becomes the influence in the lives of a group of boys who unite to form an exclusive group called the Dead
Poets Society who go against the status quo of the school & practise the freedom of Carpe Diem meaning Seize the
Day as they are enlightened on the fact that everyone only has a limited amount of days left & will soon be
fertilizing the dandelions. So by seizing the day the young boys Neil, Todd, Charlie, Richard & other member of the
Dead Poets Society exercise their minds in the art of free thinking and search their inner artists.


Neil a lively student with natural leadership qualities searches his inner self & finds that he has a passion for acting &
in pursuing his dreams it is seen as an act of rebellion. Charlie Dalton falls in love with a high school girl, & in chasing
the girl of his dreams, he tries to introduce the idea that Welton change from a single sex to unisex school. By doing
this it undermines the four pillars of Welton, tradition, discipline, honour & excellence which are enforced by the
echelons of power & authority in the school, and in order to maintain discipline in the school conformity is physically
enforced. This is seen as the principle asks Charlie to assume the position after telling him that others have had
similar actions, & they have failed just as surely as you will then beating him showing him the consequences of not
conforming.

Mr Keating himself represents the ideology of non-conformity itself through his unorthodox teaching methods. He
gets the kids to literally stand on top of their desk & look at life from a different perspective & gets them out of the
class room & into the playground. He discusses the issue of conformity by demonstration through the walk of 3 boys
as they all begin at different strides then gradually all walk in unison while the rest of the class clapped in unison
demonstrating the subconscious need of every human being to belong.

The restrictions of conformity can be seen in the use of constant cross-cutting of the interior wall & high ceiling of
the school with the autumnal landscape. In one particular scene, the camera captures the flight of a flock of geese
taking off into the vastness, where there are no restriction & constraints. This is contrasted by the static shots of the
inside of the imitation-gothic style buildings, where the colours of the environment are vibrant & dynamic
symbolising the freedom of the geese in nature compared to the confined boys within the restrictions of Welton.

Hawthornes The Scarlett Letter however shows a different kind of belonging & consequence, where it tells the story
of a young woman named Hester Prynne who commits adultery, bearing a child then forced to wear the letter A on
her bosom for the rest of her life, set in the 17
th
century in Boston. The type of belonging here is a different sort
where the protagonist of forced instead of by choice, does not belong to society and then finds herself at peace with
the fact that she doesnt belong.

After her prison sentence & being made to stand bare in front of the whole town revealing her sin, she is then left to
live on the outskirts of town in s small cottage by herself and her daughter Pearl. Although having the option to leave
town & removing the letter in order to live a normal life with her daughter, Hester chooses not to leave embracing
the letter rather than running away from it conveying Hesters determination in creating her own identity rather
than allowing others to do it for her. Here her sense of belonging is provoked during the affair with Arthur
Dimmesdale where she experiences the true meaning of belonging to someone, as her marriage to Roger
Chllingworth is shown only as a union of convenience.

Hester Prynne is made to wear the symbol of shame A that publicly humiliates her however it becomes an identity
for her. Initially representing adulterer, it become the symbol of able as she gradually gains dignity & self-respect
though her charitable deeds & earning her reprieve from the scorn of the community. Her isolation from the
community is seen in Pearls inquisitive mind where she reveals Mother, the sunshine does not love you. It runs
away and hides itself, because it is afraid of something in your bosom. . .It will not flee from me; for I wear nothing on
my bosom yet! highlighting the metaphor used by Hawthorne to depict Hesters sin & dark past that isolates her
from the rest of society.

The idea that an individuals interaction with others & the world around them can enrich or limit their experience of
belonging can be identified in Arthur Millers The Crucible, Peter Weirs The Dead Poets Society and Nathaniel
Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter. Through the interactions of John Proctor, John Keating & Hester Prynne, it is
concluded that when an individuals sense of belonging is enriched or limited, it can have a detrimental effect in the
individual and those around them that consequently are paid through the loss of life, pain or an enriching catharsis.
In all texts we can evaluate that the protagonists would have rather died with their eyes open, than lived with them
closed knowing that what keeps you alive is the sense of self-respect & conviction that the individual will never give
up.